Viennese Waltz
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Viennese Waltz (German: Wiener Walzer) is the genre of a ballroom dance. At least three different meanings are recognized. In the historically first sense, the name may refer to several versions of the waltz, including the earliest waltzes done in ballroom dancing, danced to the music of Viennese Waltz.
What is now called the Viennese waltz is the original form of the waltz and the first ballroom dance in the closed hold or "waltz" position. The dance that is popularly known as the Waltz is actually the English or slow waltz, danced approximately at 90 beats per minute with 3 beats to the bar (the international standard of 30 measures per minute) while the Viennese Waltz is danced at about 180 beats (98-60 measures) a minute. To this day however, in Germany, Austria and France, the words "Walzer" (German for "waltz") and "valse" (French for "waltz") still implicitly refers to the original dance and not the slow waltz.
The Viennese Waltz is a rotary dance where the dancers are constantly turning either in a clockwise (natural) or anti-clockwise (reverse) direction interspersed with non-rotating change steps to switch between the direction of rotation. A true Viennese waltz consists only of turns and change steps. Other moves such as the fleckerls, American-style figures and side sway or underarm turns are modern inventions and are not normally danced at the annual balls in Vienna. Furthermore, in a properly danced Viennese Waltz, couples do not pass, but turn continuously left and right while travelling counterclockwise around the floor following each other.
As the Waltz evolved, some of the versions that were done at about the original fast tempo came to be called specifically "Viennese Waltz" to distinguish them from the slower waltzes. In the modern ballroom dance, two versions of Viennese Waltz are recognized: International Style and American Style.
Today the Viennese Waltz is a ballroom and partner dance that is part of the International Standard division of contemporary ballroom dance.
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[edit] History
[edit] Early history
The Viennese Waltz, so called to distinguish it from the Waltz and the French Waltz, is the oldest of the current ballroom dances. It emerged in the second half of the 18th century from the German dance and the Ländler in Austria and was both popular, and subject to criticism. It gained ground due to the Congress of Vienna at the beginning of the 19th century and the famous compositions by Josef Lanner, Johann Strauss I and his son, Johann Strauss II. It had spread to England sometime before 1812.
from Thomas Wilson Treatise on waltzing
Initially, the waltz was significantly different from its form today. In the first place, the couples did not dance in the closed position as today. The illustrations and descriptions make it clear that the couples danced with arm positions similar to that of the precursor dances, the Landler and the Allemande.[1][2][3] The hold was at times semi-closed, and at times side by side. Arms are intertwined and circling movements were made under raised arms. No couple in Wilson's plate are shown in close embrace, but some are in closed hold facing each other. There was another significant difference from our present technique. The feet were turned out and the rise of foot during the dance was much more pronounced than it is today. This can be seen quite clearly in the figure, and such a style imposes its limitations on how the dance can be performed.
To understand why Quirey says "The advent of the Waltz in polite society was quite simply the greatest change in dance form and dancing manners that has happened in our history"[4] we need to realize that all European social dances before the waltz were communal sequence dances. Communal, because all the dancers on the floor took part in a pre-set pattern (often chosen by a Master of Ceremony). Dancers separately, and as couples, faced inwards to the spectators as much as they faced inwards. Thus all present took part as dancers or as onlookers. This was the way with the country dance and all previous popular dances. With the waltz, couples were independent of each other, and were turned towards each other (though not in close contact). Lord Byron wrote a furious letter, which precedes his poem The Waltz, in which he decries the anti-social nature of the dance, with the couple "like two cockchafers spitted on the same bodkin." [5]
[edit] Later history
In the 1920s in Germany the Viennese Waltz became outdated as more modern and dynamic dances emerged. In England the Viennese Waltz acclimatized, there Boston and later Waltz were preferred.
At the beginning of the 1930s the Viennese Waltz had its comeback as a folk dance in Germany and Austria. The former military officer Karl von Mirkowitsch made it acceptable both for society and ballroom, since 1932 the Viennese Waltz has been present on ballroom dance floors. About the same time, the Viennese Waltz had its comeback also as a (folk dance) in The Greater Cleveland Ohio U.S.A. Area. It was because the greatest number of Slovenians (60,000 - 80,000) settled in that area. Slovenia, situated south of Austria, was influenced in their folk dance by the Viennese Waltz. Frankie Yankovic, Slovenian from Cleveland Ohio traveled the world playing his version ("Cleveland Style" as per Polka Hall of Fame, Euclid Ohio) of the Viennese Waltzes. His Blue Skirt Waltz went Platinum 1949. Even in 2007, there are several opportunities to waltz each week in The Greater Cleveland Area. In 1951 Paul Krebs, a dance teacher from Nürnberg, combined the traditional Austrian Waltz with the English style of waltzing and had great success at the dance festival in Blackpool in the same year. Since then the Viennese Waltz is one of the five International Standard ballroom dances; in 1963 it was added to the Welttanzprogramm which is the fundament of European dancing schools.
The Viennese Waltz has always been a symbol of political and public sentiments. It was called the Marseillaise of the heart (Eduard Hanslick, a critic from Vienna in the past century) and was supposed to have saved Vienna the revolution (sentence of a biographer of the composer Johann Strauss I), while Strauss I himself was called the Napoleon Autrichien (Heinrich Laube, poet from the north of Germany).
[edit] Technique and styles
[edit] International Style Viennese Waltz
International Style Viennese Waltz is danced in closed position. The syllabus is limited to natural and reverse turns, Changes, Fleckerls, Contra Check, Left Whisk, and canter time Pivots (Canter Pivots).
[edit] American Style Viennese Waltz
American Style Viennese Waltz has much more freedom, both in dance positions and syllabus.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Richardson P.J.S. 1960. Social dances of the 19th century in England. p44
- ^ Sachs, Curt. 1937. World history of the dance. Norton.
- ^ Quirey, Belinda 1976. May I have the pleasure? The story of popular dancing. p66 The century of waltz.
- ^ Quirey, Belinda 1976. May I have the pleasure? The story of popular dancing. p66 The century of waltz.
- ^ Richardson P.J.S. 1960. Social dances of the 19th century in England. p63
